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White Dwarf Cosmochronometry. I. Monte Carlo Simulations Of Proper-Motion ̶ And Magnitude-Limited Samples Using Schmidt’S 1/Vmax Estimator, Matt A. Wood, Terry D. Oswalt

Publications

Observationally, white dwarf stars are a remarkably homogeneous class with a minimum observed T_eff ~4000 K. Theoretically, the physics that determines their cooling timescales is relatively more straightforward than that which determines main-sequence evolutionary timescales. As a result, the white dwarf luminosity function has for the last decade been used as a probe of the age and star formation rate of the Galactic disk, providing an estimated local disk age of ~10 Gyr with estimated total uncertainties of roughly 20%. A long-standing criticism of the technique is that the reality of the reported downturn in the luminosity function (LF) …